ly at the beginning of every stanza in a rapturous and soft
ecstasy, and then would shriek, as though he had been suddenly cast up
on the rock. The poet of Rio Medio was rallying his crew of thieves to a
rhapsody of secret and unrequited passion. _Twang, ping, tinkle tinkle_.
He was the _Capataz_ of the valiant _Lugarenos_! The true _Capataz!_
The only _Capataz. Ola! Ola! Twang, twang_. But he was the slave of
her charms, the captive of her eyes, of her lips, of her hair, of her
eyebrows, which, he proclaimed in a soaring shriek, were like rainbows
arched over stars.

It was a love-song, a mournful parody, the odious grimacing of an ape to
the true sorrow of the human face. I could have fled from it, as from
an intolerable humiliation. And it would have been easy to pull away
unheard while he sang, but I had a plan, the beginning of a plan,
something like the beginning of a hope. And for that I should have to
use the fog for the purpose of remaining within earshot.

Would the fog last long enough to serve my turn? That was the only
question, and I believed it would, for it settled lower; it settled
down denser, almost too heavy to be stirred by the fitful efforts of the
breeze. It was a true night fog of the tropics, that, born after sunset,
tries to creep back into the warm bosom of the sea before sunrise. Once
in Rio Medio, taking a walk in the early morning along the sand-dunes,
I had stood watching below me the heads of some people, fishing from a
boat, emerge strangely in the dawn out of such a fog. It concealed their
very shoulders more completely than water could have done. I trusted it
would not come so soon to our heads, emerging, though it seemed to me
that already, by merely clambering on Castro's shoulders, I could attain
to clear moonlight; see the highlands of the coast, the masts of the
English ship. She could not be very far off if only one could tell
the direction. But an unsteady little dinghy was not the platform for
acrobatic exercises, and Castro not exactly the man.

The slightest noise would have betrayed us, and moreover, the thing
was no good, for even supposing I had got a hurried sight of the ship's
spars, I should have to get down into the fog to pull, and there would
be nothing visible to keep us from going astray, unless at every
dozen strokes I clambered on Castro's shoulders again to rectify the
direction--an obviously impracticable and absurd proceeding.

"She is the proud daughter of